


like a killer and a child now

by tajargirl



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Nathan Ford is a dick, getting hit over the head is bad y'all, that's pretty much my thesis here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 10:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11461692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tajargirl/pseuds/tajargirl
Summary: Hardison is the smartest guy Eliot’s ever known. Everyone’s very impressed with his brain.Unfortunately, no one is all that concerned about Eliot’s.





	like a killer and a child now

**Author's Note:**

> _Grampa buried dignity when he got old,_   
>  _Like a killer and child now for seven long years._   
>  _He wets his own britches if he’s not told,_   
>  _But he used to build bridges, they would light 'em up at night._

The first time Alec notices, Eliot leaves his keys in a kitchen drawer. This is Eliot we’re talking about, so Alec is fairly certain not all of his keys are included on the ring, nor does the ring hold the only copy of any given key. The three of them are standing in the kitchen, Parker with the keys to at least three storage lockers, the brewpub, the pretty little blue car that Eliot was trying to take to the grocery store, and something with a lock unlike any Alec has seen before in one hand, flipping a Kamikoto with the other. Eliot is across the room, surrounded by the neatly stacked contents of the cabinets he has been methodically emptying. Alec can see so clearly the first man Eliot ever was, a soldier keeping accountability and making sure his team does the same. The kind of man who finds the things he loses, Alec thinks.

Parker laughs, big and loud and forced. “Because keys are cheating for me like knives are cheating for you? But you need both to make dinner. Okay, Eliot.” She has a look in her eyes like she’s missing something. Alec’s stomach tugs in agreement. He’s grateful to Eliot, who grumbles indistinctly but nudges her fondly as he removes both keys and knife from her grip before she uses another expensive blade for target practice. Parker skips off and Alec turns to follow, but he first catches a glimpse of Eliot’s face. He looks off-balance in a way Alec hasn’t seen since Damien Moreau. As Alec leaves, it clicks: he’s never seen Eliot misplace anything before.

*****

Eliot forgets Sophie’s name. Not _Sophie_ —her real name, the one she told the three of them in the only true confidence they ever earned from her (and that on the back of her spite for Nate). Sophie is not nearly as dramatic as her theatrical tendencies indicate—most of the Nate-and-Sophie traveling circus is courtesy of Nate and one too many glasses of scotch. Alec doesn’t know a lot about Eliot and Sophie’s relationship—he’s fairly certain they were sleeping together, probably for almost a year and a half, around the time the team first got together. He knows they were never serious, but the two of them always had a casual understanding of one another independent of the rest of the team.

So Sophie is hurt, hiding it under blustering declarations that Eliot has been proven unworthy, and Alec and Parker are forbidden from repeating the name in front of him. Parker nods earnestly, giving Sophie’s words the same weight she always does. Alec himself has no desire to cross the grifter for whom the Devereaux is named. Eliot just looks confused, and maybe slightly hurt in return. He avoids calling Sophie anything at all from then on.

*****

A job goes way, way south, and it’s Eliot’s fault. There had been a lot of moving pieces, with everyone playing multiple roles. According to all of Alec’s projections, the job had been ambitious, but well within the team’s considerable abilities. Eliot had been left to handle the private military contractors hanging around the edges, shutting them out or shutting them down before the game could really begin. The second the team sets foot in the high-rise office building, though, it’s clear that things are not handled. Three lawyers from Nate’s very exclusive “do not fuck with” list are in the lobby, and the team is chased out of Topeka by a group of very scary men with very large guns. Thirteen hours later, they have burned every safehouse, supplier, and contact they have in Kansas and southern Nebraska. The client is dead, and Nate is screaming at Eliot in a motel room in east Texas. Alec is trying not to listen, and a little bit trying not to cry, but it is impossible to miss the fact that Eliot did not do his job. Six weeks of dedicated prep, with absolutely no results beyond a college sophomore dead on the side of the road. Alec pictures her intestines again and tries not to throw up.

Eliot is on the defensive, throwing out phrases like “necessary risks” and “unpredictable circumstances” and “civilian casualties happen.” His arms are crossed tight over his chest, and Nate is getting louder, eyeing the ice bucket like he might throw it across the room.

“You didn’t do your job! You didn’t take risks, you didn’t make mistakes, you just,” _crash_ , “didn’t,” _bang_ , “do it!” _thud_.

“ _Can you even tell me what your job was?_ ”

Eliot says nothing at all, and Nate walks out the door.

*****

A month later a tentative peace is holding, and the team is easing its way back into work. Alec loves the job, actually. They’re saving a crumbling old movie theater that plays an eclectic collection of old and new from the ravages of some megacorporation. It’s the kind of place he’d like to take Parker once the job is done. He doesn’t, though.

Lucille is parked beneath the marquee, a row of spotlighted posters leading down the dark tunnel towards the entrance. The job is wrapping up, Nate, Sophie, and Parker already in the back of the van as the shadows of Eliot and his prey dance behind the glass doors. The mood is celebratory, Parker bragging, Sophie praising, Nate sitting smug. Alec can hardly breathe. There’s a huge banner over the entrance, a serious-looking man in profile. As he listens to the sounds of thuds and yelps, faint grunts coming in through Eliot’s earpiece, all he can see is the word writ large across Will Smith’s face:

CONCUSSION.

Eliot slides into the passenger’s seat, grinning dopily.

“Took you long enough,” Nate snarks.

“Mission complete, man. Let’s roll,” Eliot returns. There is blood in his teeth.

Alec starts the van and drives away.

*****

Alec takes his time choosing the job. Two months later, he is giving a briefing on a county hospital in Sarasota, Florida, playing up the community impact of the (admittedly extensive) health insurance fraud occurring there. The job is low-risk, and the details of the American healthcare system incredibly tedious. Alec watches his teammates’ eyes glaze over. No one bats an eyelid as Alec lays out the plan, a little too complex for a building with three sleepy security guards and office locks that might as well have been purchased at Home Depot.

The next Tuesday, “Mike Webster” shows up for his eleven a.m. appointment, complaining of a lingering neck ache after a motorcycle accident. With his ponytail, scrape under his chin, and delicate way of favoring the ribs on his left side, he looks the part. As Alec expected, he is signed up for a battery of tests and diagnostics, then referred to a specialist the primary care provider goes golfing with at least twice a month. The rest of the job runs like clockwork, no adjustments required from Alec in his command center. As the rest of the team packs up and heads out, Alec double-checks that the MRI and blood test results have downloaded to his phone.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy can’t be reliably diagnosed _in vivo_ , Alec knows. He ought to, since he spent his down time for the last two weeks becoming one of the world’s foremost experts on it. But it turns out he doesn’t need to parse the results of the blood test for autoimmune changes. Alec looks down at the printout of the MRI scan in his hands, and knows that something is so, so wrong.

That evening, Eliot meets Alec’s eyes and holds them. He doesn’t say anything.

*****

It’s time to leave Nate. It’s been a long time coming, in fact. He and Sophie cede the brewpub to them, and don’t leave an address or a phone number. Sophie says she knows they’ll be able to find them if they need them. Alec knows they won’t.

Parker takes the lead from there, which no one minds. She’s always been the bloody, beating heart of them, or maybe she just holds theirs, one in each hand. They start slow, adjusting to their own decreased manpower. Alec gently nudges her towards jobs that need a grifter, or else both a hacker and a thief. Anything but a hitter.

Six months later, Alec shows Eliot the place. Not “shows” on the three-sixty, WiFi-enabled, Hardison-secured cameras he had installed, but actually takes him there. They stand on a ridge, looking out at the rolling green hills and sky the shade specifically reserved for Kentucky summers. Alec is rubbing his palms on his jeans, chattering nervously about the security perimeter and gas range in the kitchen and independent water source and pasture over there that could have horses, if Eliot wanted, when Eliot interrupts.

“This is my dyin’ place,” he says, softly, steadily. Alec’s throat closes abruptly, and he can only nod, those blue eyes fixed on his own.

Eliot draws him in, one hand on his shoulder, the other cupping the back of his neck. Their foreheads touch, and Alec can feel their breath mingling between them before Eliot draws him all the way into his arms.

Eliot is quiet, his face buried in Alec’s shoulder. Alec closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Concussions are very serious business. So is repeated sub-concussive head trauma. Every time Nate fails to acknowledge the way Eliot puts his body on the line for the team, I wanna punch him in his smug mouth.
> 
> Title is from Danny Schmidt’s “Grampa Built Bridges.”
> 
> Ask about my writing [here](http://tajargirl.tumblr.com). I am [on tumblr](http://palindrome-girl.tumblr.com).


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